Improvement of Ultrathin Oxides by Post-Oxidation Annealing

Abstract

The low temperature oxidation is effective for the atomically-controlled gate oxide growth. We focused the effects of post-oxidation annealing (POA) and attempted to improve the properties of the low-temperature-grown ultrathin oxides with a thickness of 3nm by POA. POA abruptly reduced the leakage current at a low gate voltage below 1.5V and the interface trap density. The correlation between the interface trap and the leakage current at a low applied voltage region were confirmed. We found that the stressing immunity of the ultrathin oxides grown at a low temperature, 650 0 C, is drastically improved by POA at 850'C.